thought it would be, and all the courage and defiance with which she
had set out had ebbed away.
"Then why, why are you treating me as you do?" demanded Bruce. "There
isn't another fellow whom you know and would rather have--there's no
Arthur Stanhope in the way of this Rutherford wooer. And I'm sure you
love me, Rob, though you don't know it, or won't admit it."
This was an unfortunate remark for Bruce. It sent Rob's head up in the
air again, and awoke her spirit of resistance.
"I freely admit being fond of you, Bruce, but you are not satisfied
with my affection. You want me to marry you, and I don't want to
marry. Of course there isn't any other I want--but that would be quite
as true if you omitted the other:--There isn't _any_body I want, you
or another. I tell you I don't want to marry; I'm sick of hearing of
marrying--Wythie, Frances, Bartlemy, you, even Prue, all wanting to
marry some one! Hester is the only sensible person. Won't you please,
_please_, Bruce, try to be reasonable? Can't you see how unpleasant it
makes things? I have to dodge you for fear you'll make love to me, and
we used to be so happy and affectionate and comfortable! It's all your
own fault. For pity's sake believe me, Bruce, and let's be happy again!
I won't marry, I can't marry, I don't want to marry, and all you are
doing is spoiling a chumminess that is as much nicer than sentimental
fussing as roast beef is nicer than white of egg, beaten to a stiff
froth." And whimsical Rob stopped to laugh at her involuntary quotation
from the cook-book, though her eyes were brimming.
Bruce looked at her and to her great relief his face cleared up, though
she might have felt less cheerful if she could have read his mind.
"You're only a fledgling still, Roberta," he said to her manifest
annoyance. "You are unable to diagnose your own symptoms; as a
physician-to-be I think I know you better than you know yourself. Very
well, then; so be it. I will stop pestering you, and you shall get back
your old-time comrade as near as I can recall him. Of course we are
both going to remember that we are man and woman, even though we are
young ones, not boy and girl any longer, and of course you cannot quite
forget that I love you. But there is no help for that; we'll go back to
the old ways as near as we can. So don't dodge me any more, Roberta,
and I'll curb my impatience."
Rob looked at Bruce sidewise and most doubtfully. "You mean mischief,"
she said. "You always did when you were too good and yielding."
Bruce laughed outright. "I mean beneficiently--to us both," he said.
"'You'll love me yet and I can wait your love's protracted growing.' We
always loved our Browning, you know. Here is Cousin Charlotte's gate.
Run in, little Robin, and don't worry. If I had lost you I couldn't
meet the doctor down yonder and go on with my work--I'd be--well, never
mind all that! We're not to talk of these things, and I hope I'd be
man enough to live my life to some purpose if I lost my eyes, and
limbs--or even you! But it would take time, to face my maimed life.
It seems queer to find you, clear, decided, sane Rob, trying to fight
against happiness, and not understanding yourself! Good-bye, Robin
dear. When you see me again it will be your old chum Bruce, so don't
run away from him. Good-bye."
Bruce took one of Rob's hands--the left one nearest him--shook it
kindly, raised his hat and walked swiftly away, leaving Rob to go
slowly into Cousin Peace's pretty house with a new sensation of
bewilderment and defeat subduing her into a person whom she did not in
the least recognize as confident Rob Grey.
Lydia opened the door and Rob amazed her by exclaiming: "Why I forgot
all about you, Lyddie; you're another!"
"Another what, Roberta?" Lydia asked with her customary gravity.
"Another who has lately married. It doesn't matter; I had been
reckoning up how many seemed to have been stricken with the epidemic;
that's all," said Rob.
"What you are meant to do, you do, Roberta, and it's not an epidemic,"
returned Lydia. "It is a state of great blessedness when the brethren
dwell together in it in unity."
The sound of a piano ceased from within and Polly, growing taller and
with an awakening look on her pale face, rushed out to greet Rob with
the ardour of her intense and hidden nature. Rob folded the little girl
in her arms with more than usual tenderness.
"Dear Polly, did Cousin Peace think I had broken my promise? I had to
go to Wythie's first, you know," she said.
"No; we weren't looking for you so soon; I thought I should get through
practising before you came," said Polly. "Maraine is waiting for you."
Maraine was the title by which Rob had solved the difficulty of what
Polly should call Miss Charlotte, "for, though she was not really your
godmother--I doubt your having a godmother, Pollykins,--she is near
enough a fairy godmother to deserve the name," she said.
"Very well; take me to her, Polly," Rob said now, and followed Polly to
Miss Charlotte, whose soft voice and gentle, unseeing face, raised to
smile at her, fell on Rob's perturbed spirit like the balm which she
always found Cousin Peace.
"What has happened, Robin dear?" asked Cousin Peace instantly. "What
troubles you?"
"Nothing worth talking about, dearest peaceful cousin," said Rob.
"Bruce came down with you, Polly said. Did he tell you what has been
discussed, and does it frighten you?" asked Miss Charlotte.
"He told me nothing except--Oh, why are we talking about Bruce?" Rob
burst out in an hysterical cry that revealed to Miss Charlotte all her
troubles.
"Only that it was Bruce's plan which I was to lay before you--Hester
wanted me to tell you without waiting for her to-morrow, when she comes
out. Bruce thinks that in the course of his reading he has stumbled
upon the cause of the lameness, the worse than lameness, of our one boy
at Green Pastures. He worked on his idea secretly till he felt that he
had his theory and proposed course well in hand, then he laid it before
Dr. Fairbairn. The old doctor is most wrought up about it. It involves
an operation, which, if Bruce is right, will cure that poor child.
The old doctor has called upon several surgeons; some of them laugh
at Bruce, with the intolerance of older minds for young ones, but a
few--and they are the more important ones--agree with Bruce that, young
and undiplomaed though he is, he has hit upon an actual discovery.
They are discussing performing the operation on the child--for Bruce
could not be allowed to do it, of course--under Bruce's direction, in a
sense. It is not fully decided, but very nearly. Curious Bruce did not
speak of it himself!"
"Not a bit; it is just like Bruce to let other people tell even his
best friend of his triumphs--and, Cousin Peace, I was not very nice to
Bruce," said Rob, with a glow of pride in the clever student, and a
humility new and bewildering.
"Oh, dearest Robin, don't be blinder than I, and fail to recognize
happiness when it knocks at your door!" cried Miss Charlotte, laying
her hand on Rob's. "Bruce deserves the best at the hands of all of
us--Bruce is my boy of boys, you knew."
"There's not another boy on earth equal to him; we all know that, not
even Basil and Bartlemy, but that doesn't make one love him, does it?"
cried Rob.
"It makes us all love him, Robin, and we will let him feel it, quite
simply and honestly, as is his right," said Cousin Peace softly.
"Whether or not the operation is performed, and whether or not Bruce's
theory is correct, the mere fact that he formed it and is clever
enough to have thought of it has already won him honour in the eyes
of his future associates and it has given him a place among those of
his profession who think and discover. Isn't that a great thing for a
student to have accomplished?"
"It is fine, Cousin Peace; don't think I am not glad," said Rob feebly.
"Is Polly going on well with her music?"
"Better than we expected; she is a faithful little Polly, and works
hard," said Miss Charlotte, with a smile that rewarded Polly for aching
muscles in back and untrained little fingers. "Mr. Armstrong is coming
out especially to see Polly on Saturday. He is greatly interested in
her. What about Prue?"
"She goes from glory to glory, revelling in admiration, luxury and all
the honey-pots of the world open in a row, pouring their sweetness
over her," said Rob. "Mardy will not let her marry till spring, you
know, but I suppose she will be with Arthur's aunt a great deal this
winter--this aunt took Arthur's mother's place when she died, you
remember, don't you? So it is really like letting Prue go to her future
mother-in-law. Mardy can hardly help it. Besides, Prue is nearly beside
herself with happiness, and the only fly in her honey is that she can't
afford to dress like the girls she meets, but even that trouble will
drop off when she is Arthur's wife. Isn't it strange that Prue should
have got what she wanted, when she aimed at something so far beyond her
reach, apparently?" And Rob sighed unconsciously.
"It is a great joy to know that all three of you dearest girls are
finding such perfect joy," said Cousin Peace, while Polly climbed into
Rob's lap at the sound of the sigh.
"Hester has done a nice thing, did you know it?" asked Rob, as if
anxious to get the conversation into safe waters.
"Hester does nothing but nice things," said Miss Charlotte. "What is
this particular one?"
"She has persuaded her father to rent three rooms in Myrtle Hasbrook's
house for the Baldwins to use when they come to Fayre. Since Green
Pastures is succeeding and is a permanent institution Hester made her
father see they ought to have a place in Fayre that was their own. By
taking Myrtle's rooms they add enough to her little income to secure
her. I think Hester is really a magnificent girl!" Rob spoke with
warmth, and Miss Charlotte as warmly assented.
"But my dear Robin made it possible," she added, with her loving touch
on Rob's hair.
"Oh, I didn't want the house; it wasn't good in me to refuse it," said
Rob, rising to go. "The little grey house and Mardy, isn't that enough
to satisfy any girl?"
"It is a great deal, but it is natural to want to round our lives,
Robin," said her cousin. "I am a happy and blessed woman, dear, and my
life was marked out for me when my eyes were closed to all visions,
except those of dreams. But I am a happier woman for having my little
Polly. Each life has its meaning, every one her limitations and she
is a blessed woman to whom the whole meaning of life comes, offered
in such love and honour and security that she may take it fearlessly,
and through it reach up to the highest ends. To go without bravely and
cheerfully when that is one's vocation is noble, Rob, but to receive,
gratefully, on one's knees, and to enjoy the fulness of all living is
not a thing to turn from, dearie, for in its highest form it is the lot
of few."
"You who never married are the best, the most peaceful, the most
comforting of women. Even Mardy has had a hard life, in some ways, and
does not seem so lifted above sorrow and loss as you," said Rob.
"I am blind Charlotte Grey; set apart, not lifted up, dearie," returned
her cousin, who rarely spoke of her misfortune.
Polly looked from one to the other. "Miss Charlotte is the sky, and you
are a green field, full of flowers, Rob," she said.
"Little singing Polly!" said Miss Charlotte. "A green field for sweet
human joys and nourishment! That is the very point, my children."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ITS GLAD SURRENDER
"Why does my Robin sit with her 'head under her wing, poor thing'?"
asked Mrs. Grey. For Rob had been very silent and distraught for a few
days, which was equivalent to being another person than Roberta Grey.
"I think it must be because it's the fall of the year and that my
spirits go down with the leaves," said Rob rousing herself. "The
thought of the operation on little crippled Jimmy has haunted me--I
shall feel better to-morrow when it is over. Or worse," she added as an
afterthought.
Mrs. Grey had a suspicion that this did not fully account for Rob's
depression. She had heard from Wythie of her fears of Rob's bad
treatment of Bruce that morning when they had set out together for Miss
Charlotte's, but she was far too wise to ask a question or to hint at
a more personal trouble in Rob's mind than the operation pending for
little crippled Jimmy. She reflected that there was a remedy for this
sort of complaint less difficult than a surgeon's knife, a remedy more
likely to be taken when not recommended by onlookers.
Hester and her mother were staying up on the hill, occupying the rooms
which Hester's tactful kindness had secured for them in Myrtle's house,
thus giving the young widow just the additional income needed to smooth
her hard path.
Rob went up to get Hester to go with her to Green Pastures on the
morning when the experiment was to be tried which, if it should
succeed, would restore Jimmy to his place among fully living people.
And which would bring high honour to Bruce, whose theory of Jimmy's
trouble was to be worked upon--perhaps this thought, not less than
interest in Jimmy, sent Rob's feet rapidly on her way.
They were to operate at nine that lovely late September morning; by
half-past ten the girls felt that they might venture to Green Pastures
without being in the way. They could not talk on their way over,
but hurried along in silence, eyes dilated and breath quick as the
thoughts of both concentrated on what might be awaiting them at their
destination.
Green Pastures looked cheerful as they neared it. It had undergone
improving and enriching at the hands of its young founders, and the
old, barren look that it wore in the purely Flinders days had been
merged in beauty of flowers and cultivation. Aunt Azraella had endowed
it with a fund for keeping it in order, since paralysed Mr. Flinders
could never work about his farm again, and Aaron, who had for so long
made the hill house conspicuous in Fayre for its well-kept grounds, and
who still looked after it for Myrtle, was responsible for the outward
well-being of Green Pastures, also.
No one was in sight as Hester and Rob reached the gate, but when its
latch clicked there swung around the corner on her crutches one of the
children whom it sheltered, and who bore down on the girls with the
speed in which she surpassed her comrades in misfortune.
"Oh, say," she called in that New York Eastside accent which is
altogether incommunicable by printed signs. "Say, dey's been woikin' at
Jimmy an' he's t'rough. Got his senses back all right. He's doin' fine.
But, say, ain't it fierce? De knife slipped an' jammed de doctor, de
young one, dat frien' er you's. Stuck him right in de hoit. He's huyt
somethin' fierce. I heayd he wouldn't git over it." The child's eye
gleamed with the fire of the born romancer, but neither Rob nor Hester
saw it, nor stopped to remember that this was Nellie, whose tendency to
fabricate troubled them more than her lameness.
They clutched each other, and the colour went out of Rob's face,
leaving her so ghastly white that Hester put her arm around her and
half carried her into the house. Mrs. Flinders was not in evidence, and
they pushed open the door of what had been the Flinders' living-room,
but which had been appropriated to the children for a play-room because
of its generous morning sunshine.
There, in the flood of September's sunny warmth, in the window sat
Bruce, the other two little girls, one on each knee, resting their
heads confidingly on his shoulders while, his arms around their thin
bodies, he busied himself with constructing something of cardboard for
their amusement. Bruce's eyes were bent upon his work, but his face
looked peaceful, with a certain strength and proud confidence in the
lines of his mouth that told the story of that morning's work. The
whole scene was so full of peace and security that Rob's brain reeled,
and Hester uttered a glad cry.
At that Bruce looked up smiling, but his face changed as he saw Rob's
deathly look, and he set the children down quickly and gently, crossing
over to the girls.
"Rob, what is it?" he cried, horrible visions of something tragic in
the little grey house or in Basil's home flashing upon him.
Rob put out both hands and seized the lapels of his coat; a faint
suggestion of ether about him made her shudder. "She said you were
stabbed--in the heart--" gasped Rob. "Bruce, Bruce, I should have died,
too!"
Bruce steadied her and turned to Hester for an explanation. "It's
that dreadful, horrible little Nellie!" she cried. "She met us at
the gate and told us that the knife had slipped and had stabbed you
in the heart. I think we must amputate her head!" And Hester, gently
disengaging herself from Rob, and with a look at Bruce, ran out of the
room. Rob stood with bowed head still holding Bruce's coat, shaking
with sobs beyond her control.
The colour mounted to Bruce's temples as he realized that at last Rob
knew her own mind, and had surrendered. He did not speak for a moment,
but stroked her hair from which her hat had fallen, and which the
September wind had whipped into more rings and ripples than usual,
steadying himself against the great rush of gladness with which he
realized what all this meant.
Rob made a strong effort at self-control, feeling miserably for her
handkerchief as she sobbed: "You wouldn't like to have a friend stabbed
in the heart yourself, Bruce. And it shocked me."
Bruce laughed outright. "Don't apologize, Rob dearest," he said. "I
don't mind." And he wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief in a
paternal manner.
"She is a limb, that youngster, to frighten you so, but somehow I can't
feel just indignation yet. I never thought I should admire a lie so
much," said Bruce. "Look up at me, Rob, and let me see my wife."
"There isn't anything to see," said Rob faintly. "I am numb."
"Poor darling!" said Bruce. "It was a cruel thing! I won't bother you
now, dear. Let me put you over in the rocking-chair in the sunshine,
and then I'll hunt up Mother Flinders and get her to bring you a cup of
hot milk, and I'll give you something to steady you. Dear heart, you
didn't know that you cared like this, did you?"
"I didn't," said Rob feebly. "People always care most when you're dead."
"That's bad," said Bruce, "because I am alive, and hope to keep on
living. There's enough strength left in you to make a feeble fight
against capitulation, isn't there, Bobs Bahadur?" And Bruce lightly
kissed the tumbled, reddish brown hair curling up against his arm. "Now
sit here, all comfy, my Robin, and I'll bring you something that will
set you up again, your old self. Do you want Hester?"
Rob shook her head. "Come back yourself, Bruce, only you, else I shall
begin again believing it was true," she said simply, and Bruce left her
with a throb of wondering delight that this could be independent Rob.
Bruce hastened back with his restorative, and Mrs. Flinders followed
soon with the hot milk. "That is considered the best kind of a
restorative after an operation, and you underwent a severe amputation,
Rob," said Bruce, holding the cup to her lips, while Mrs. Flinders
looked on with grimness, concealing her pleasure that what everybody
wanted had come to pass.
"Give me the cup, Bruce; I'm quite able to feed myself, besides it
is so hot you would scald me," said Rob, taking it from him. "I am
ashamed, Mrs. Flinders; I never went to pieces like that before, but
you see it came so suddenly!"
"Of course," assented Mrs. Flinders with entire gravity. "And cripple
or not, I think that Nellie ought to be spanked--she can run on her
crutches fast enough and lie fast enough to afford a good spanking."
"But not for this offence," pleaded Bruce. "Wait till she lies once
more, and then spank her; the beneficent little humbug!"
"If Hester can't make them little angels, as well as improve them
physically, Green Pastures is going to prove a pasture full of nettles
to her," said Rob, with a return of the laughter to her eyes.
"I have not told you, Rob--your condition drove it from my mind--"
began Bruce wickedly, "but the operation on Jimmy is a success. My
theory was the right one, and the boy will be able to run about, on
crutches maybe, but vastly improved. I really believe that he will be
only slightly lame, and not need crutches."
"That means everything for you, doesn't it, Bruce?" said Rob proudly.
"It means a good deal," said Bruce quietly. "Now, Robin, let us fly to
the little grey house. I am off duty this morning, and I want to take
you home."
"Wait till I find Hester, and smooth my hair," said Rob, going in
pursuit of her friend.
"I'm so glad, dearest Rob, I'm so very glad! I don't think I'm going
to be a sour maiden lady with no sympathy for romance. I have wanted
so much to see you wake up to what you really felt," said Hester,
arranging the pins in Rob's wayward locks.
"I think now that I must have known all along, and that is why I
behaved so badly," said Rob meekly.
Hester laughed. "I think so too," she said.
"I wish you were not the only one without a share in this epidemic of
happiness! France and Prue will be married by spring, even I am doomed,
and only splendid Hester, the great-hearted Hester, is left out," said
Rob, her arms over her friend's shoulders as she looked into her eyes
with joy beginning to illuminate her own.
Hester shook her head. "I am glad and sympathetic; I am even able to
understand what it means to you all, but for myself I am satisfied. I
would rather help the child waifs than have my own little ones to look
after; rather feel that I was doing for others than have the dearest of
love to look after me," she said. "I have always been different from
other girls, Rob, and my vocation is to be alone, though not lonely.
Or, at least, not too lonely. Down in the bottom of my heart I am
lonely, but I suspect that there is a lonely spot in every human heart,
and that all human beings--or at least most of us--are a little hungry
all their lives."
Rob did not answer, except to kiss Hester as she turned away. "You
certainly are not much like other girls, my splendid Hester," she said.
And she ran away to find Bruce.
"I thought you were never coming," he grumbled as she entered, already
claiming her in true masculine fashion.
"Good-bye for to-day, Mrs. Flinders," said Rob, turning back a radiant
face to the drab woman regarding her with incredible sympathy concealed
beneath her flat chest.
"Good-bye, Roberta, and good luck to you; half you deserve would be
enough to set you up for two lives. I'm sorry he can't sense the news
I'll tell him, but I'll tell him just the same. He's set a lot by you
ever since he got over being mad because you made him do the right
thing by you when he run your place on shares, and that's ever since
you was good to Maimie. Goodbye, Roberta."
"Mardy, Mardy Grey!" called Bruce in the doorway of the little grey
house. "Come and see my beautiful wife!"
Mrs. Grey flew in from the kitchen where she was consulting with Rhoda,
and that jovial person was so startled by Bruce's salutation that she
followed to peer through the door at the strange lady.
"Rob!" cried her mother, and Rob ran to her, letting herself be
gathered in the loving arms and drawn down into her mother's lap in the
rocking-chair, half laughing, half crying.
"Oh, Bruce, dear Bruce, I am truly thankful this foolish child has come
to her senses at last," cried Mrs. Grey, contriving to hold out a hand,
to Bruce and to pull him down for the kiss which she gave him with her
heart on her lips.
"Yes, ma'am," said Bruce dutifully. "I thought you would be glad to
have such a well grown son who could mend bones and administer drugs
when anything happened in the family. To tell you the honest truth Rob
came to her senses with such a rush that she gave me no choice today
but to accept the offer which she practically made me."
"Bruce, you wretch!" cried Rob. "Mardy, that dreadful story-telling
Nellie Something, up at Green Pastures, told me that the operating
knife had slipped, and that Bruce was stabbed fatally--wouldn't you
have been sorry, too, if that were true?"
"I don't understand, but I can safely say yes, I think," said her
mother. "Never mind, Rob; what you ought to be ashamed of is having
tormented Bruce for so long. You won't take her away from me, Bruce?
The one stipulation I make is that you live here. Even that I can't
insist on, but I do hope you will let me keep Rob?"